Crowns of the Kingdom

Chapter 20: Rounding Up the Band, Part 1

Donald took one of the unlit torches from its holder and poked the tiki statue with it a few times, to make sure it was just a statue.

"All clear," he told the others, and the six of them filed into the Tahitian Terrace dining area and clustered around a table. Mickey spread out a souvenir map of Disneyland obtained from the Jungle Cruise ticket kiosk and pulled a marking pen out of his pocket.

"We have six targets," he said, drawing bold blue X's on the map, "here, here, here, here, here, and here. And there are six of us. It's obviously not safe for anyone to wander around the park alone, so I suggest we split into two groups of three. We've been sending people out in threes to patrol, and it seems to be working well. Donald, Goofy, and Daisy, you three go west from here and cover Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, and the Country Bear Jamboree. Minnie, Pluto and I will head east and drop in on the Tiki Room, America Sings, and 'it's a small world.'

"Our objectives are to fill everyone in on what's going, and to get some of them to come back to the jungle with us and counteract what the Dispirations are doing to King Louie. And I think we should get as many different types of musicians as possible, so we have plenty of options and can switch things up and keep the Dispirations off-balance."

He took a deep breath before continuing. "Now, we can't predict exactly what's going to happen once we get inside the attractions, but there's an excellent chance that we'll find ourselves in the middle of some pretty intense adventures. So let's give ourselves plenty of time to hit all our stops. If we meet back here at sundown, that's about seven or eight hours…plus it makes things easier for any ghosts we manage to recruit. So…any questions?"

"Yes, actually," said Daisy petulantly. "Since you bring up ghosts and all…why are you claiming all the nice friendly attractions for yourself and leaving us to deal with ghosts and pirates and grizzly bears? Well, I guess the bears aren't really a problem, but still!"

Mickey mentally stalled out. The truth was that he didn't have a specific reason in mind for dividing up the attractions that way, other than the efficiency of having one group go east and the other go west. He had just said what first came to mind. But he felt the need to defend his decision—maybe to avoid appearing too arbitrary, maybe because he had the faint impression that Daisy was protesting more for the sake of being argumentative than because of any legitimate concern.

"It just works better this way," he said, the logic coming to him as he went along. "You know Pluto doesn't get along well with Keys…and he hates Gomer for some reason." At the mention of the bear pianist's name, Pluto made a confirming growl. "We can't very well have him in the group that heads west. And I have to go where he goes."

"Oh…right," Daisy said, deflating.

"Don't worry, toots," Donald reassured her. "I'll protect you from the scary stuff."

"Who's scared? I didn't say anything about being scared. I just don't think it's fair that—"

"Daisy," Minnie interrupted firmly but gently, "if it bothers you that much, I'll switch places with you."

"I just said I…really?" said Daisy? "You'd do that for me?"

"Not just for you," said Minnie. "I'm making this offer because you won't be much use to anyone if you're constantly worried about being in danger."

"Wait a minute, Minnie," said Mickey, who was suddenly beset with mental visions of his girlfriend tossed in the brig of a pirate ship, or under attack by zombies. "I'm not so sure that's a good idea. Daisy could be right about the danger."

"So?" Minnie retorted. "The dangers will be the same no matter who covers the west side. If it's a bad idea for me, it's a bad idea for Daisy and Donald and Goofy." Realizing that she sounded intimidatingly angry, she made a spirited smile. "Come on, Mickey—you said you were going to start trusting the characters to see to their own safety. Aren't we all characters too?"

Mickey met her smile with his own. "Minnie, if there's one thing you definitely are, it's a character! Okay, we'll do it. You go with Donald and Goofy, and Daisy, you can come with Pluto and me. Come to think of it, it might even be fun to mix it up a little from how we normally do things."

Fun was not a word any of the others would have used to describe anything about the crisis they were all facing, but they couldn't begrudge Mickey his optimism. More to the point, they were all—including Mickey—anxious to get the next phase of the quest underway.

Meeting each other's eyes around the small table, they each put a hand in the center (or in Pluto's case, a paw) and held them in formation briefly before raising them skyward with a wordless cry of determination. Then the group left the Tahitian Terrace and split into two equal halves, one heading east, the other west.

After a moment, Minnie and Daisy remembered that they had agreed to switch places, and each darted back the other way, uttering a humorous "Oops!" as she passed the other.


"I wish I were wearing better shoes," Daisy remarked idly, hobbling slightly from her brief run. "If I'd known we were going to be walking clear across the park a few times, I'd have worn lower heels. At least our first stop is right here." They were standing directly under the Adventureland entrance arch, next to the canopied lanai that served as the waiting area for the Enchanted Tiki Room.

"Actually," said Mickey, "I was thinking we should take Minnie's advice about running errands where you have to make a lot of stops. She says it's best to start at the one that's farthest out and work your way back."

"Well…okay," Daisy agreed. "Far be it from me to doubt Minnie's expertise when it comes to planning a shopping trip…or anything similar. As long as we don't have to pick up a quart of milk and a dozen eggs on top of everything else."

Mickey chuckled in appreciation of the good-natured joke. "As long as we're going to be up by 'it's a small world,' do you want to stop at home to change shoes?"

"No thanks, I think I'll be okay." She looked over at the Tiki Room and made an exhale of frustration. "Are you sure, Mickey? We're right here."

"Trust me on this," said Mickey, pulling her along with him as he and Pluto set out walking for Central Plaza. "If things start going south, you'll be glad our last stop is on the way back to our meeting place." Daisy grumbled at this, but not too strenuously.

From the shadows under the tropical plants decorating the perimeter of the lanai, dozens of invisible eyes watched them leave. The owners of the eyes nodded to each other and began developing suitable bodies for themselves.

Mickey, Daisy, and Pluto crossed Central Plaza heading northeast, along the parade route where it detoured around Sleeping Beauty's Castle and angled toward the Matterhorn. As they neared the base of the towering peak, Mickey slowed his pace and looked left and right, biting his lip slightly. "This way," he said finally, leading the other two to the right, around the south side of the mountain and into Tomorrowland.

"Um…why are we doing this?" asked Daisy. "Wouldn't it be a lot faster to go the other way?"

"I don't want to get any closer to the courtyard than we have to," Mickey explained. "I just know someone will flag us down to ask a few questions, and then someone else will notice, and before we know it we'll be completely sidetracked."

"Yeah, you're probably right," she agreed. "Although that would be less of a risk if you knew how to say no to people." At his irritated look, she raised her hands in a conciliatory gesture. "I'm just saying, is all!"

They were on the east side of the Matterhorn by now, walking between it and the Submarine Lagoon across the walkway. Mickey repressed a shudder as he glanced at the sparkling surface of the water, remembering the dreadful ordeal he had endured…good grief, had it really been only the previous day? (Or had it been ten years? The forward jumps were definitely not good for keeping track of a timeline.)

A subtle movement near the Monorail station caught his eye. A small machine, looking something like a Mars rover with four robotic arms, was trundling around on the track. "Careful, you two," Mickey said softly, setting a hand on Pluto's head. "I think there's a Dispiration up there. Let's make sure not to draw any attention to ourselves."

The other two followed his gaze. Pluto made a token whine at the sight of the machine. "That looks like one of the ones we fought in the Monorail," said Daisy quietly. "I wonder what it's still doing up there." It appeared not to be doing much of anything, just wheeling idly back and forth along a short stretch of track, occasionally emitting an electronic sound somewhere between a beep and a whir.

"Let's not stick around to find out," said Mickey, picking up his pace slightly, nudging Pluto along with him. They continued on to the Fantasyland side of the mountain and, after a few furtive glances to make sure no one was about, turned right, heading toward the north end of the park and the sprawling white façade of "it's a small world."

It almost hurt to look at under the cloudless late-morning sky, the geometric panels and gold-leafed spires and pinwheels catching full sunlight and shining nearly as brilliantly as the sun itself. With no noisy guests present, the slow ticking of the giant clock could be heard all the way at the southern end of the broad walkway leading up to the attraction, and the ride's signature music carried almost as far. The overall effect was a magnification of "it's a small world's" already larger-than-life presence, dominating its corner of the park.

"Gee…it's almost eerie, isn't it? Eerie in a cute, cheerful, totally wholesome way, of course," Daisy observed. "Does that make any sense?"

"Strangely enough, it does," Mickey replied.

As they had expected, there were no Cast Members manning the attraction, but it was running anyway, the pastel-colored boats cruising straight through the bifurcated load/unload area without stopping…and, by some fortunate quirk of timing, without colliding when the two branches met up again. Since the sedate pace of the ride offered little risk to a reasonably agile person attempting to board a moving boat, the three of them simply made their way through the queue to the edge of the flume and hopped in the next vessel to drift by.

Then they braced themselves in preparation for what was bound to occur once their boat entered the show building.

"it's a small world" is not a very popular attraction with anyone other than young children. By age nine or so, people tend to feel overwhelmed—if not outright disgusted—by the cartoonishly bright colors, saccharine message, and infamously repetitive theme song. Mickey Mouse, being a wide-eyed idealist even on his worst day, and having a fond working relationship with the Sherman Brothers, had no problem with either the message or the song…but even he had to admit that in many respects, the ride looked like the United Nations had eaten too much fruit-flavored candy and been sick all over the interior of the building.

The children who populated it, on the other hand, typically behaved as though they had eaten too much candy and were rapidly metabolizing it. "Cheerful" didn't begin to describe it…and as the lemon-yellow boat occupied by the three cartoon characters floated into the first show scene (the Far North), the children's exuberance only increased. "It's Mickey Mouse!" cried the pint-sized Inuits and Lapps. "Hello, Mickey! Hello, Miss Daisy Duck! Hello…(what's the doggie's name again?)…hello, Pluto!"

They cruised through the ride, from Europe to Asia, Africa to Latin America and thence to Oceania, their arrival bringing a surge of excitement to the international throng with each new scene. The kids swarmed the edges of the canal, reaching out to shake hands with their guests and greeting them with excessive friendliness in their various native tongues. "Hola, Señor Ratoncito! Konnichi-wa, Ahiru-san! Jambo, Pluto-mbwa! Aloha! Guten tag! Salaam! Nihao! Zdravstvuite!" It was dizzying, and it continued throughout the trip, until their boat reached the final scene, the White Room, where all the nations came together in one big multicultural celebration, and where there was plenty of space to disembark and hold an impromptu meeting.

"Sure, sure, it's great to see you too," said Mickey, wading through the sea of overeager youngsters. "My goodness, isn't that a nice…bowl. You painted it yourself? No pulling on my tail, please—ouch! Listen, I can't—I can't do what I'm here to do with all of you pawing me like that…if some of you could just…Daisy, help!"

"Everybody, QUIET!!" bellowed Daisy, so loudly that a few specks of plaster drifted down from the ceiling. An instant hush fell over the White Room, the children staring wide-eyed at her, but still smiling (because they always smiled).

"Thanks, Daisy," said Mickey. "Now, kids, it is nice to see you all, but unfortunately, this isn't a pleasure visit. The fact is, we need your help."

"Muy bueno, Señor Mickey," said Pablo, the Mexican boy who tended to act as one of the de facto leaders of the "it's a small world" cast. "What can we do para usted?"

Mickey had already decided not to let on too many details about the crisis, which would only frighten the innocent children. "Some naughty monkeys are singing bad songs over in Adventureland. We're getting people to go there with us this evening and sing good songs to teach them a lesson. And you kids have one of the most good songs all of Disneyland."

"Ah-ah-ah, you cannot fool me, Señor Mickey," said Pablo. "I know you do not say 'most good,' en ingles…you say 'best!' But I will happily help you, and I know the other children will happily help you also. Right, amigos?"

There was a general cheer from the already dangerously enthusiastic crowd. "Whoa, settle down, settle down!" Daisy urged them. "We only need a few. Okay, Pablo, you already volunteered…who else wants to come?"

There were dozens of immediate offers, but Mickey and Daisy managed to pare it down to six: Pablo; Umeko, a deceptively demure-looking Japanese girl; Masamba, the African drummer boy; an Indian dancer named Vasanta; the Inuit kayak champion Tikaani; and Anneliese from the Netherlands, who was generally sweet but had deadly aim with her clogs when there was a good reason for it. A fine representative sample of the attraction's many cultures.

"What fun this will be!" said Masamba, thumping his drum in a practice rhythm. "Mickey, bwana, when shall we meet you in Adventureland?"

"Sunset," said Mickey. "But I don't expect you kids to trek through the park by yourselves when it's swarming with Disp… uh, with naughty monkeys. I'll send Pluto back here to pick you up when it's almost time. Remember not to pull on his ears and tail this time." Pluto snorted in agreement, knowing well how overenthusiastic children usually treat innocent dogs.

Their task finished, the three of them made their way back to the canal and jumped into the next passing boat, exiting the White Room to a mind-boggling chorus of "Arrivederci! Namasté! Zai jian! Cheerio! Aroha nui!"

"Good grief," said Daisy, patting her feather-do to make sure it was still properly tidy. "Those kids do fill space, don't they? I feel like I've been spelunking in a cave made out of world flags and glitter. So, where to next, boss? America Sings?"

Mickey made a nod of confirmation. "We'll have to be careful moving through Tomorrowland, though. We saw the one Dispiration on the way in; there might be more still wandering around."

They scrambled out of the boat as it passed the unload area and made their way back up the long thoroughfare and around the Matterhorn into Tomorrowland. The Dispiration they had seen before was still where it had been, scuttling around the short section of Monorail track as though it were lost, and they ignored it in its peculiar innocuousness while staying alert to the presence of others that might be more hostile.

But they could not ignore the apparition, both familiar and unfamiliar that arose in the southernmost part of the Tomorrowland skyline, towering above all around it. It was the shape that was familiar—a broad-based cone with the tip sheared off, adorned with ridges radiating down its sides from the top and with elegant upswept spires. But it was made of entirely unfamiliar substance…if indeed it was made of substance at all, for it looked like a thing of light and mist and gossamer, more transparent than the most delicate crystal. Its form was defined by glistening edges with no surfaces to fill the space between them, as though a huge spider web were being grasped in the center and drawn gently toward the sky, every thread catching the light with a faint twinkling iridescence.

If it had been a solid structure, it would have been Space Mountain…and it would have been two years early, as the famous roller coaster had been completed in 1977. As the ephemeral construct it was, none of the three of them could even imagine what it was doing there, or what it meant.


"Thank you so much, Henry," said Minnie again, shaking the shaggy emcee's heavily clawed paw. "All you bears take care of yourselves now."

"Yeah," said Goofy. "And if you see anything that looks almost like it belongs but not quite…step on it!"

Henry laughed heartily. "I think that can be arranged. But to be honest, I don't anticipate much trouble. It'd take some pretty bold monsters indeed to mess with a den o' bears!"

"That's a good point," said Minnie. "Are you sure this won't leave you too short-handed to defend yourselves?"

"Heh. I'm sure we'll manage, with or without the Bear Rugs," said Henry. "Don't you worry 'bout us none. Jest get on with what needs gettin' on with, and I'll see you—or rather, the boys'll see you—at sunset."

"Thanks again!" piped Minnie as the three of them headed out the exit of the Country Bear Playhouse.

"Well, that was nice!" Goofy emoted. "We oughta visit with him more often!"

"I just hope the other two stops are this easy…even though I know they won't be," said Donald. The other two sobered instantly, unable to disagree with him. Even at the best of times, dropping in on the 999 "happy haunts" of the Haunted Mansion, or the rowdy Pirates of the Caribbean, was a harrowing prospect. Neither group was villainous per se, but it simply wasn't in their nature to be cooperative—or, for that matter, friendly—toward outsiders.

It was the former they faced now, as they left Bear Country, skirting the western shore of the Rivers of America, and arrived at the northernmost tip of New Orleans Square. To their right, the Haunted Mansion loomed, perched in its sheltered corner of the park like a gargoyle, watching and waiting for the right moment to pounce on an unwary passerby.

Fortunately for Minnie, Donald, and Goofy, they were very wary indeed, and they were not merely passing by. After a brief pause in which they gathered their collective nerve, they passed through the wrought-iron gates and marched up to the colonnaded porch and, after a second, briefer pause, into the dimly lit foyer: a room no more than twenty feet square, with a tiger lily pattern on the greenish wallpaper, a large crystal chandelier dominating the ceiling, and two of the walls consisting mainly of large sliding panel doors, each one leading to one of the attraction's famous stretching galleries.

They waited to be formally received.

And waited.

And waited a bit longer.

"Uh…shouldn't somethin' have happened by now?" wondered Goofy. "Where's Master Gracey?"

No sooner had he spoken than the door from the porch slammed violently shut. That wasn't standard operating procedure! The three of them found themselves rather alarmingly enclosed in the foyer, with only the feeble candles on the chandelier illuminating the hush space.

"Master Gracey?" Minnie tentatively called out to the empty, motionless air. "Is that you? Listen…um…you probably know this already, but this is Minnie Mouse. I'm here with Donald and Goofy on some pretty important business…so do you think you could tone down the haunting, just for today?"

All that happened in response was that one of the pairs of panel doors obligingly slid open, letting the three of them into the octagonal gallery beyond. High above their heads, flanked by grinning gargoyles bearing candles, the portraits of some of the Mansion's more distinguished residents smiled or glowered down at them: a delicate young woman with a pink parasol, a stern-faced, middle-aged gentleman in a formal suit, a graceful older women holding a red rose, and another man wearing a brown bowler hat and a saucy expression. The panel closed itself again, and the floor began descending slowly, elongating the room vertically. And still Master Gracey's sarcastically spooky voice was absent. The abnormal silence was far, far more unsettling than the creepy spiel that usually accompanied this part of the show, in which Gracey drew guests' attention to the fact that the room was not only bizarrely stretching, but lacked visible exits.

"Brrrrrrr! This is giving me the creeps," said Donald, wrapping his arms firmly around his torso. "What do you think is going on?"

"I couldn't say," said Minnie. "Maybe we'll find out when we get to the bottom."

The elevator continued to descend. The paintings unreeled on the lengthening walls, revealing the eerie truth behind the ordinary-looking scenes: the girl with the parasol balanced on a tightrope over the waiting jaws of a crocodile; the gentleman standing on a barrel of dynamite with the fuse lit; the elderly woman sitting serenely on the gravestone of her husband, who had had his skull cleft in two with an axe; the fellow with the bowler hat perched on the shoulders of a second, who was similarly perched on a third…and all three of them sinking into quicksand. Gallows humor, the lot of it. On this particular occasion, it didn't seem so funny.

Finally, the floor bumped softly to a halt and a different sliding panel opened, letting Minnie, Donald, and Goofy out into a short hallway lined on one side with more paintings. These also changed from normal scenes to sinister ones, fading back and forth between their two states: an Egyptian princess lounging on a divan morphed into a savage panther-woman, a knight on horseback was struck by lightning and transformed into a gruesome undead skeleton, and similar. On the other side of the corridor, picture windows revealed a dark and stormy night outside, in total defiance of the fact that it was really a sunny summer's day.

And now, finally, something came to greet them: a silver three-branched candelabra, floating toward them without visible means of support, as though it were being carried by an invisible butler.

"Finally!" Minnie breathed. "We were beginning to think even the ghosts had abandoned this place. Can you tell us what's going on? Where's Master Gracey?"

The candelabra bobbed, as though bowing or curtseying, and then began sweeping and spinning about, the candle flames leaving glowing green traces hanging in the air. Random-appearing at first, these soon rearranged themselves and coalesced into the shape of eerie letters in an old-fashioned style of script: THE MASTER IS CURRENTLY OCCUPIED

"Occupied with what?" Donald demanded.

The letters gradually faded out, and the floating candelabra produced more of them: WITH A MATTER OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE.

"What a coincidence," said Minnie, "because we're here on a matter of utmost importance. Please take us to see him."

I'M AFRAID THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE, the candelabra wrote. THE MASTER HAS ASKED NOT TO…BE DISTURBED FOR ANY REASON.

"Well, you tell him—" Donald began, but Minnie held up a placating hand.

"I know you're just doing your job," she told the candelabra, "but believe me, there's not a single thing he could be doing that's more important than this. At the very least, will you please let him know we're here?"

The candles flared in a way that suggested a sigh, and the candelabra made a beckoning motion before drifting back the way it had come. Minnie, Donald, and Goofy followed with a mixture of relief and raised apprehension.

"Do you think we can trust that thing?" asked Donald, sotto voce. "What if it's a Dispiration?"

"I don't think it matters," said Minnie with a slight shudder. "If this place were nothing but wall-to-wall Dispirations, it wouldn't be much worse than it normally is."

Donald made a tiny but explosive chuckle. "Come on, Minnie," he said. "Don't tell me this place scares you."

"Maybe a little," she confessed. "But so what if it does? It's supposed to be scary. Anyway, it's not like you have room to talk—don't think I haven't noticed how nervous you are today."

"I'm not nervous," Donald defended himself as they reached the end of the hallway and turned the corner. "I'm keeping my guard up in case there are Dispirations around here." He turned up his beak and walked on ahead of the other two…straight into a thick curtain of cobwebs. There followed a moment of flailing and spitting out dusty strands. "That doesn't prove anything!" Donald said hastily while trying to disentangle himself. He noticed something black and beadlike clinging to his beak and crossed his eyes, focusing on it. It turned out to be a quite large and absolutely bewildered spider.

Even if they hadn't been in a haunted house, Donald's scream of panic would have been enough to wake the dead. Minnie and Goofy watched the ensuing spectacle with mild amusement, as he hollered and swiped at the arachnid, succeeding only in getting himself further wrapped up in the sheetlike webs. By the time he gave up, exhausted, he was virtually cocooned in them, suspended from the ceiling…and the spider was still scuttling about his beak in its own marble-sized fright.

Minnie couldn't stop herself. "My word, Donald, it's certainly a good thing you're not nervous. Imagine how much worse that would have been just now if you were." Donald glared at her and muttered angrily, but was unable to retort properly because of the cobwebs lashing his beak shut.

Minnie and Goofy helped Donald out of his dusty silken predicament. This took a few minutes due to the sheer volume of cobwebs involved, and by the time they were finished, the floating candelabra was nowhere to be seen.

"Oops," said Goofy. "I think it went on without us."

"Maybe not," said Donald, pointing to the area just ahead of them, where an endless line of strange objects, looking something like black eggshells with seating for two, moved constantly, conveyor belt-style, emerging from…somewhere in the gloom behind, and progressing up a staircase to the gloom further on. These were the Doom Buggies, the Haunted Mansion's iconic ride vehicles. "Maybe we're supposed to get on the ride."

"I doubt it," said Minnie. "The Doom Buggies don't go anywhere near Master Gracey's private quarters."

"Well, maybe Master Gracey isn't in his private quarters," Goofy suggested. "The candles didn't say he was; they just said he was busy."

"Good point," Minnie and Donald chorused. Not knowing what else to do, the three of them trooped over to the Doom Buggies and hopped into one of them. It was a tight fit, but manageable.

"Say, we better pull down on the safety bar," Goofy piped up after half a moment. "Master Gracey isn't around to lower it for us."

"Better not," Donald disagreed. "We might have to jump out of this thing in a hurry." The front portion of the Doom Buggy stayed where it was, adding to the off-kilter feeling of the visit as the car ascended the staircase in total silence.

They might have done better to pull it closed. One of the first sights on the Haunted Mansion tour is the eerie, aptly named Endless Hallway, which extends off to the right of the Doom Buggy track. Normally, the vehicles swivel gently to the right at that point, to give their occupants an unobstructed view of the indefinitely long corridor. The Buggy carrying Minnie, Donald, and Goofy, however, instead swiveled rather abruptly to the left, and then there was a bone-jarring lurch as it suddenly zoomed backwards, leaping off the beaten path to whiz up the Endless Hallway itself. Its three passengers, quite naturally, screamed in sheer unadulterated terror. They could see nothing of where they were going, only where they had been, and after the first time the Doom Buggy whipped around a corner, none of it was at all familiar—what seemed like miles of passages, lined on both sides with countless identical wooden doors and the occasional half-moon table. At least once, the Doom Buggy charged up another staircase; at least once, it plunged in freefall down a dumbwaiter shaft for a few floors, halting its descent by unknown means in order to emerge safely (but still terrifyingly) into the next stretch of hallway.

By the time the mad vehicle finally coasted to a stop, the three of them had been reduced to quivering wrecks. They didn't even notice that they had stopped until after they had slithered, half-fainting from motion sickness, out of the Doom Buggy and sprawled bonelessly on the floor. But eventually the hallway stopped spinning. Minnie sat up weakly, blinking in confusion.

"Guys, it looks like we're here…wherever 'here' is."

It was certainly no part of the Haunted Mansion that any of them had ever been to before. The wallpaper bore a pattern of black roses outlined in metallic gold that glinted in the dim light. (The source of the light was not readily apparent, but that was typical of the Mansion.) The carpet was thin plush and looked sage green at first, but as they shuffled about, regaining the feeling in their legs, they noticed that they were leaving hunter green footprints in the pile—the dull color was due to a thick layer of dust that had settled on the floor.

Since the Doom Buggy was still facing backward with respect to its destination, they had to move around it to see where it was they had been dragged off to. They were near the end of a hallway that terminated in ornate, varnished oak double doors. The floating candelabra was there, managing somehow to give off an air of mild impatience.

THIS WAY, PLEASE, it wrote in the air. The double doors swung open slowly, their massive brass hinges creaking like ancient trees in a storm, to reveal a sort of antechamber, containing four-legged stools (with plush cushions) and potted plants (just this side of dead) and framed oil paintings (of positively ghoulish-looking aristocrat types) and surprisingly few cobwebs. In the wall immediately counter-clockwise from the double door was a single door, slightly ajar. A strip of warm light spilled out of the narrow gap, and the muffled sound of voices could be heard.

The candelabra led Minnie, Donald, and Goofy into the small room, spelled out WAIT HERE, PLEASE, and slipped through the gap in the doorway. After a brief moment, it reappeared. YOU HAVE BEEN FORMALLY ANNOUNCED…THE MASTER WILL BE WITH YOU PRESENTLY. Then it flitted out the double doors, which closed with a cacophony of groans and squeaks.

It was a great deal darker in the antechamber with them closed. The only light came from a stump of candle in a bronze wall sconce, and from the gap in the doorway. The oil paintings looked even more ghastly in the dimness, with the eyes (and, in some cases, teeth) of the subjects standing out starkly against the darker faces. In order to take their minds off the grimness of their immediate surroundings while they waited, the three characters tried to listen in on the conversation taking place in the next room. They could only make out about every fourth or fifth word spoken, but the voices speaking were easy enough to identify.

One was a rich, fluid, heavily inflected baritone. This belonged to Master Gracey; in fact, in a sense it was Master Gracey, because he rarely existed as anything more than a disembodied voice. The other voice was that of a woman, smooth and chilly and self-possessed to the point of haughtiness. The three of them recognized it with a horrified start:

Maleficent!

Worse, the tone of the barely-audible conversation made it clear that there was no hostility at all between her and Master Gracey. Whatever they were discussing, however it had come about, they were on the same side…and that meant that the three waiting to be admitted to their presence were in a very bad spot indeed.

Swallowing a yelp of fear, Goofy sprang to his feet and made for the double door, but Donald caught him by the back of his shirt and whirled him back to his stool, which was next to Minnie's. Having already come unglued once over the spider, and again over the madcap Doom Buggy ride, the duck was not about to give in to another panic reaction, and he was not about to let the other two do so either. He pulled his own stool over to theirs and drew them into a huddle.

"What are you doing?" Minnie hissed. "We need to get out of here!"

"Running away won't do any good," he explained. "They already know we're here. What we need to do is march right in there and confront them. Let them know we're not afraid of them."

"But Donald," Goofy whispered, cringing, "we are afraid of them!"

"Then we'll fake it!" Donald said sharply. "We're actors, aren't we? Come on. Follow my lead."

He rose and marched over to the door, not so much frightened as geared up. The other two followed, hoping desperately that he actually had some sort of plan. Donald took a deep breath, rolled up his sleeves, took another deep breath, and then flung the door wide and charged into the room. "Aha!" he said triumphantly, pointing an accusing finger at the tableau inside. "Thought you'd get away with…huh?" He staggered back a few feet, totally deflated.

Maleficent was nowhere to be seen. What was to be seen was a tastefully appointed study furnished with mahogany bookshelves and a deep, wine-red carpet. An antique oil lamp sitting on a small table next to an elegant, leather-upholstered armchair provided most of the light. The rest emanated from the other object on the table: a sixteen-inch crystal ball inside which was a woman's head with wild white hair, an eldritch glow, and a bored expression. It was Madam Leota, the Haunted Mansion's resident spiritualist (an easy profession for someone who is herself a spirit)…whose voice happened to be identical to Maleficent's.

"Ah, there you are!" said Master Gracey's voice from the vicinity of the armchair. "I was just about to call you in."

"I told you this would happen," said Leota. "The living are so impatient."

"Among other limitations," said Gracey. There was a shimmer in the air around the armchair, and strands of faintly luminescent mist drew together, forming first an outline, and then the figure of a man sitting in the cushioned opulence—a young man, slim-figured and brown-haired, wearing a Victorian smoking jacket. "This should help to accommodate one of them. Now, then—what is so dreadfully important that you three feel the need to make demands of my house staff and interrupt my private conference with Madam Leota?" He smiled amiably, to let them know there were no hard feelings. Unfortunately, since he was a ghost, the actual effect was rather disturbing.

"Well, it's like this," said Goofy cheerfully. (He was so relieved to find that they weren't facing Maleficent and a hostile Haunted Mansion after all that he couldn't help but be full of glee.) "See, there're these crowns, right? And Maleficent went and hid them all in different years, and we gotta find 'em so it'll be 2005 again. But before we can do that, we need to get this other crown from King Louie, only the Dispirations have got him all hypnotized, so we gotta get people to sing to him and break the spell!"

Leota and Gracey exchanged baffled glances. Minnie and Donald winced, expecting an unimpressed dismissal of the barely coherent explanation. Instead, Leota made one full, leisurely rotation inside her crystal ball and said, "All issues of articulateness aside, that seems quite relevant to what we have been discussing. Wouldn't you agree, George?"

"Quite so," Master Gracey agreed. "We have recently suffered an influx of…rather peculiar visitors. On the face of things, they seem like perfectly ordinary ghosts…er, so to speak. But they are almost completely anti-social, never saying a single word to anyone."

"Not that it's worth much trying to engage them," Madam Leota added. "Getting anywhere near them is…well, without putting too fine a point on it, it's horrid. And I'm saying this as someone who specializes in horrid—creepies and crawlies and toads in a pond, and all that."

"That's them!" Donald exclaimed. "They're called Dispirations, and they work for Maleficent."

"Who is, I presume, meddling with space and time? Just as I thought," said Leota. "See, George? I told you there was something of the sort going on. The emanations from Beyond were very clear about that."

"So there are Dispirations in the Haunted Mansion," said Minnie. "But then where are they? We haven't run into any, and they usually mob us as soon as they figure out we're nearby."

"Mm, yes," said Master Gracey, manifesting a glass of brandy so that he could swirl it luxuriantly. "The newcomers have been restricted to the Graveyard, where some of our more boisterous residents can keep them in check. It seems to be working so far."

Minnie thought for a moment, tapping her foot and biting her lip. "That doesn't work so great for us, though. Those boisterous residents are probably the very ones we need."

"The ones you need to sing to King Louie," Leota filled in.

"Yes," said Minnie.

"Not to worry, friends," said Master Gracey expansively. "As you know, there is no shortage of musical spirit on the premises. Or musical spirits, for that matter. When and where do you need them?"

"On the Tahitian Terrace at sunset," said Donald.

"He means real sunset," Goofy clarified. "Not whatever you get in here that makes it the middle of the night all the time."

"I surmised as much," said Gracey with an arch little smile. "I think I can satisfy your little request without leaving us short-handed here. What say you, Leota?"

"Oh, absolutely," the oracular head agreed. "Some of our musicians don't even have hands. Now, as to these 'Dispirations,' as you call them, are we to understand that they are infesting other parts of the park besides our Mansion?"

"You better believe they are!" Minnie avowed. "In fact, we were going to warn you about them…except that I guess you already know and are taking care of things for yourselves."

"My dear girl, we are professionals," said Leota airily. "One can't run a successful house of horrors without some mechanism to ensure that only authorized horrors gain entrance to the house. But you have apparently had more dealings with these beings than we have. Would you say our containment strategy is a good one, or ought we take a more severe tack in managing these interlopers?"

"Uh…" Minnie stalled out. She hadn't been expecting such a question.

Donald picked up the slack. "Get rid of 'em! Those things are bad news!"

"Duly noted," said Gracey, swirling his brandy some more. "And perhaps after night falls, we can send a patrol corpse out into New Orleans Square to handle the threat in a larger radius."

"Gawrsh, that'd be great!" said Goofy. "But, uh, don't you mean a patrol corps?"

Gracey's grin broadened. "A body, in any case," he said with a horrendous chuckle. "So then, have you any more business to discuss?"

"I don't think so," said Minnie. "Fellas, do we?"

"Fill them in on what's going on…check. Get some musicians to come back to the jungle with us…check," Donald counted off on his fingers. "No, that's it."

"Excellent!" said Master Gracey. "In that case…" He snapped his fingers.

The floor dropped out from under the three of them.

After a brief but heart-stopping plunge, they landed—oof—in a moving Doom Buggy, which summarily turned ninety degrees to the left and tipped them out onto a moving walkway. They were at the end of the ride.

"Good grief," Minnie emoted as she got shakily to her feet. "I won't say I'm not glad Master Gracey's on our side, but his sense of humor…" The other two heartily agreed, though they didn't have enough left in them to do more than mumble their concurrence.

The three of them staggered out of the Haunted Mansion and into the sunlight, hoping—but by no means confident—that the next phase of their errand would be much less nerve-wracking.

To Be Continued…


A/N: Master Gracey and Madam Leota are not as easy to write dialogue for as you might think. For some reason, they keep drifting off into British accents in my head, even though I know darn well that they're both all-American. Incidentally, Leota does have the same voice as Maleficent, because they share a voice actor: Eleanor Audley (who also voiced Lady Tremaine). This has been your Disney Trivia Tidbit for the day.

This is the longest chapter of "Crowns" I have written to date (the Haunted Mansion inspires a lot of purple prose, as you might have noticed), and I barely covered half of what I originally intended to. Around about the end of the "it's a small world" segment, I looked at my page count and realized that I had, basically, three choices. 1) I could spend months and months writing a colossally huge chapter that detailed the visits to all six of the classic musical attractions, while my readers grew old waiting for the next update. 2) I could breeze through all six, writing only the bare bones of dialogue and action and totally skimping on the description. 3) I could chop the chapter in half, and save the rest for next time. Obviously, I went with 3). Fans of the Enchanted Tiki Room and Pirates of the Caribbean will have to wait for Chapter 21. But I promise you, it'll be worth it. :)

—Karalora